UNESCO Creative Cities and Memory of the World: India

The correct answer is C, 2004. UNESCO created the Creative Cities Network in 2004 to link cities that place their creative industries at the centre of local development, and a city joins in one of seven fields: Crafts and Folk Art, Design, Film, Gastronomy, Literature, Media Arts or Music. Option A is wrong because 1992 is the year the Memory of the World Programme for documentary heritage was launched, the natural confusion in this chapter. Option B is wrong because 2003 is the year of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, under which Yoga, Ramlila and Durga Puja are listed. Option D is wrong because 2015 is the year Jaipur and Varanasi became India's first members of the network, not the year the network itself was set up. Separate the year of a programme from the year of a country's first entry.

The correct answer is B, Crafts and Folk Art. Jaipur joined the network in 2015 on the strength of its craft traditions, among them blue pottery, hand blockprinting, gem cutting, lac bangles, meenakari enamel and stone carving, and it was one of India's first two members along with Varanasi. Option A is wrong because Design is a separate field of the network, held by cities known for industrial and graphic design rather than for handmade craft. Option C is wrong because Gastronomy is the field in which Hyderabad was designated in 2019 for its biryani, haleem and Deccan culinary line. Option D is wrong because Media Arts covers digital and electronic art, a field in which no Indian city has been designated. Srinagar, in 2021, is the other Indian city in Crafts and Folk Art.

The correct answer is C, Gwalior. Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh joined the network as a City of Music in 2023, recognised for the Gwalior gharana, the oldest surviving gharana of khayal singing, and for its association with Tansen, the musician of Akbar's court, whose tomb and annual Tansen Samaroh are in the city. Option A is wrong because Varanasi was designated a City of Music earlier, in 2015, for the Banaras gharana, the shehnai and dhrupad. Option B is wrong because Chennai became a City of Music in 2017 for Carnatic music and its December music season. Option D is wrong because Pune, although a centre of Hindustani classical music and of the Sawai Gandharva festival, is not a member of the network. Three Indian cities hold the Music field: Varanasi, Chennai and Gwalior.

The correct answer is B, Film. Mumbai was designated a UNESCO Creative City of Film in 2019, on the strength of the country's oldest and largest film industry, which grew from Dadasaheb Phalke's Raja Harishchandra of 1913 and now produces films in Hindi, Marathi and several other languages from one city. Option A is wrong because Literature is the field of Kozhikode in Kerala, designated in 2023 for Malayalam publishing and its reading culture. Option C is wrong because Design is a field of the network in which no Indian city has yet been designated. Option D is wrong because Music belongs to Varanasi, Chennai and Gwalior. Note that Mumbai and Hyderabad were announced together in 2019, which is why the two are often swapped: Mumbai for Film, Hyderabad for Gastronomy.

The correct answer is A, Gastronomy. Hyderabad was designated a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy in 2019 for a cuisine that grew in the kitchens of the Deccan courts, with Hyderabadi biryani, haleem, qubani ka meetha and the Irani chai of the city's cafes as its best known dishes. Option B is wrong because Crafts and Folk Art belongs to Jaipur, from 2015, and to Srinagar, from 2021. Option C is wrong because Film belongs to Mumbai, which was announced in the same round of 2019, making it the standard distractor here even though Hyderabad also has a large film industry at Ramoji Film City. Option D is wrong because Literature belongs to Kozhikode from 2023. The paired fact worth memorising is that India's two 2019 entries were Mumbai for Film and Hyderabad for Gastronomy.

The correct answer is B, Literature. Kozhikode in Kerala became India's first UNESCO City of Literature in 2023, recognised for a dense network of publishing houses, libraries and reading rooms, for Malayalam writing and for literary festivals held in the city. Option A is wrong because Music was awarded to Gwalior in the same round of 2023, and the two Indian cities of that year are therefore the commonest pair to swap. Option C is wrong because Gastronomy belongs to Hyderabad, from 2019. Option D is wrong because Design is a field of the network in which no Indian city has yet been named. A useful way to fix the Indian entries is by pairs: Jaipur and Varanasi in 2015, Mumbai and Hyderabad in 2019, Gwalior and Kozhikode in 2023, with Chennai in 2017 and Srinagar in 2021 standing alone.

The correct answer is B, Memory of the World. The Memory of the World Programme protects documentary heritage, which means manuscripts, archives, maps, printed material, photographs and sound and film recordings, and it keeps an International Register, regional registers and national registers. Option A is wrong because the World Heritage List, under the Convention of 1972, protects places of outstanding universal value, such as the Taj Mahal, Hampi and the Sundarbans. Option C is wrong because the Representative List under the Convention of 2003 covers living practices, among them Vedic chanting, Ramlila, Yoga, Kumbh Mela, Durga Puja of Kolkata and Garba of Gujarat. Option D is wrong because the Creative Cities Network recognises whole cities for their creative industries. Only the first and the third rest on conventions ratified by states; the other two are programmes.

The correct answer is B, 1992. UNESCO set up the Memory of the World Programme in 1992, after recognising that war, neglect, damp, insects and illegal trade were destroying archives and manuscript collections across the world. An inscription on its registers carries no funding and no legal protection; what it carries is recognition, which governments and institutions then use to argue for conservation and for public access. Option A is wrong because 1972 is the year of the World Heritage Convention, which concerns places. Option C is wrong because 2003 is the year of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Option D is wrong because 2011 is only the year two Indian manuscripts, Tarikh-e-Khandan-e-Timuriyah and the Vimalaprabha, were inscribed. Fix the four years: 1972, 1992, 2003 and 2004.

The correct answer is C, 2007. The Rigveda manuscripts, preserved at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune, were inscribed on the International Register in 2007 as a record of one of the oldest surviving bodies of religious poetry anywhere. Option A is wrong because 1997 is the year of India's first inscription, the Tamil Medical Manuscript Collection of the Institute of Asian Studies. Option B is wrong because 2003 is the year of the Archives of the Dutch East India Company, an entry India shares with the Netherlands, Indonesia, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Option D is wrong because 2013 is the year of Shantinatha Charitra, a Jain manuscript. The same institute in Pune is also the custodian of the Bhagavadgita and Natyashastra manuscripts inscribed in 2025, which makes it the single most asked institution in this chapter.

The correct answer is D, 2025. The two manuscripts were inscribed on the International Register in April 2025 on a nomination made by the Ministry of Culture, and both are in the custody of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune. The Natyashastra, attributed to Bharata, is the foundational treatise on drama, dance and music in India. Option A is wrong because 2017 is the year the Gilgit manuscripts and the Maitreyavyakarana were inscribed. Option B is wrong because no Indian inscription was made in 2021. Option C is wrong because 2023 is the year of the manuscripts of Abhinavagupta's works and of the shared archives of the first Non-Aligned Movement summit. Keep the regional register separate: Ramcharitmanas, the Panchatantra and Sahrdayaloka-Locana were added to the Asia-Pacific Regional Register in 2024.